Midtown Lunch

Coachella Crab Fries. Photo courtesy of the OC Register

• EVENTS Going to Coachella this weekend?  Here’s a list of all the food options [Food is the New Rock]
• DTLA Cafe Dulce is now open in Little Tokyo [Eater]
• DTLA Aburiya Toranoko is now open for lunch [The Minty]
• DTLA Wurstkurche is better than Berlin Currywurst [Squid Ink]
• DTLA For Downtown Pho Saigon doesn’t look too bad! [The Minty]
• LAX Front Page Jamaican looks awesome [Savory Hunter]
• MID CITY Speaking of the Farmer’s Mkt, Charlie’s Cheeseburger is great [AHT]
• SAMO Tinga on La Brea is looking to expand [The Feast]
• MOBILE How to make Grilled Cheese Truck’s signature item [Popsugar]
• NEWS More on Mendocino Farms’ planned expansion [City’s Best] [

I still remember the first time I want to the Original L.A. Farmer’s Market.  The year was 1994 and I may or may not have just been a studio audience member of the Price is Right (sadly I didn’t get called to come on down.)  Getting to go to Los Angeles, and visit my cousin, was my High School graduation present and I remember thinking the Farmer’s Market was quite possibly the greatest food court I had ever been in.  Fast forward 17 years later, and the excitement has worn off a bit.  Most of the places are pretty mediocre, and even the decent ones are kind of pricey for what they are (I’m looking at you Loteria.)  Was it always that way? Probably.  The 18 year old me also thought that I would never find better clothing stores than the T-shirt shops on Hollywood Blvd.

And yet, it’s rare that you’ll find somebody willing to outright bash the Farmer’s Market food court.  The place is an institution, and for somebody who loves food courts it is hard not to get a little bit excited walking into that place on a beautiful day.  (And let’s face it, it beats eating at La Piazza.)   But I think the real reason most people have fond feelings about the Farmer’s Market is because everybody has their one go to dish.  The one thing they always order, every single time, without fail. After all, the number of options can be intimidating.  And it’s easy to get lost in that maze.  Going back again and again for the same thing is the easy solution for that.

My go to dish?  The Mee Indo Style at Singapore’s Banana Leaf.

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Over the weekend LA Taco’s 3rd Annual Taco Madness came to a close, and in the closest vote of all time Mexicali Taco & Co (in Westlake) was crowned the champ of Los Angeles tacos.  Only one problem for this lunch hunter…  they’re only open at night!  In fact, sometimes it seems like most of the great taco trucks are only open late at night (Leo, I’m looking at you.)  So when I saw that the Taco Madness Runner Up, Mariscos Jalisco was *only* open for lunch I got pretty excited.  Add to that the fact that they’re pretty close to Downtown, and dispatched (the amazing) Ricky’s Fish Tacos (1400 Virgil, Hollywood) in the semi finals, and I couldn’t resist heading over Monday to check it out.

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As is customary on Midtown Lunch, every Tuesday we profile a random reader to get their recommendations for the best spots to lunch near their work. This week its Veronica, a Downtown marketing expert looking for some solid Vietnamese food in Chinatown.

Name: Veronica

Age: 29

Occupation: Online Marketing/Social Media

Where in L.A. do you Work?: During the day, at First 5 LA – Downtown, near Chinatown/Little Tokyo

Favorite Kind of Food: Japanese, Vietnamese, Indian.

Least Favorite Kind of Food: I can’t stand veal or fois gras. Regardless of the ethical reasons, I just really, really don’t like the taste of either of them.

Favorite Place(s) to Eat Lunch: Despite working at the transportation mecca of Los Angeles, we hardly ever go anywhere that’s not within walking distance. The Rattlesnake & Rabbit or the Austin Blues at Wurstkuche (800 E 3rd St), along with a bucket of their life-changing fries. I also love hitting up the Little Tokyo Marketplace (333 S Alameda St) for fresh sashimi from Woori Market, the Spicy Champon at Hana Ichimonme and the macrobiotic bento boxes at Shojin. Phillippe’s (1001 N Alameda St) would also be on this list if I could ever get in at lunch without a huge line out the door.

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I can’t believe it’s been almost a year since Uncle John’s Ham & Eggs was forced out of their old school diner and into the kind of scary looking Hotel Stillwell (on Grand between 8+9th). The gussied up decor ruins a bit of the charm, but the old hotel more than makes up for whatever “weirdness” they might have lost in the transition. Their Chinese/American diner food mash up is still one of my favorite places to eat in Downtown L.A., but it turns out it’s not the only great lunch to be had in the hotel.

As a big fan of buffets, I couldn’t help but notice the old sandwich board outside the hotel promoting Gill’s Indian Buffet. I don’t usually get turned off by the sketchiness of a lunchtime scene, but the lobby isn’t exactly inviting and the thought of walking into the bowels of an abandoned looking hotel searching for an Indian buffet had horror movie written all over it. But the $7.95 price tag (and my all you can eat loving gut) eventually won and this past Friday I finally gave into the lure of the Stillwell Hotel’s Indian buffet.

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